


It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

by magnetgirl



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Elves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tauriel wakes up. </p><p>Post-Battle of the Five Armies, during the War of the Ring</p>
            </blockquote>





	It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

**Author's Note:**

> Despite an unhealthy obsession with Jackson-Tolkien elves (all of them) I've never written in this fandom before, but these two have haunted me since I saw the third Hobbit film. I have so much to say this barely scratches the surface but I was compelled to try.

"Because it was real."  
  
She let him help her carry the dwarf to his kin. He would be buried in the ground, under the mountain. Under the rocks and dirt. Far from the stars. Too far.  
   
She let him lead her away from the dwarves and their grief. It was private. It should be. They might have welcomed her, but only as a guest. The immortal, endless elves could only ever be guests in the company of mortals and of grief.  
  
She let him take her away from the dwarves, the bodies, the blood, the mountain, the world. She let him take her home.

 

* * *

  
Tauriel's eyes fluttered open to find the king watching her. He was seated on a small chair, little more than a cushion on a stool, but his posture was royal and his expression unreadable.  
  
She was in a bed, but not her own. The room was unfamiliar, though clearly Mirkwood.  
  
"How long?" She'd meant to ask something else but she wasn't sure what.  
  
Thranduil was motionless beside her. "Does it matter?"  
  
She lowered her eyes. No. Not to an elf. "What is this place?"  
  
"It was my wife's solarium." Tauriel frowned. Thranduil's expression remained unreadable. "I thought the light might help."  
  
She followed his eyes to the ceiling, a round window in the very center revealed the starlit sky above. The architecture was intricate and complex, vines of bronze or something similar holding glass so thin, it may not be there. The view would be stunning, day or night. Tauriel's breath caught in her throat. Feeling returned to her in a rush and she shut her eyes.  
  
"May... I... be... alone?" Elvish is a melodic language but the music was as stilted as her words. Thranduil wanted to refuse.  
  
"If you wish it."  
  
"Please," she whispered. He nodded and withdrew.  
  
When she next woke it was day, and she was alone. Sunlight filled the room. It was warm and bright and she felt young. Young as she had been running through the tunnels with Legolas. Young as she had been climbing the ranks of the royal guard. Young as she had been leaving to save a dying dwarf, and maybe the world. She had saved him, she remembered, and then he'd died, and she felt old.  
  
She sat up, swung her feet over and stood for the first time in she knew not how many years. She thought she should be unsteady but she was not. Like the room, the dress she wore was not her own, though maybe, like the room, it was now. She touched the wine red cushion the king had been sitting on the last time she woke. It did not belong to the Thranduil she remembered. Nothing in the room did.  
  
Fruit, water, and wine were on a table by the wall. Fresh, the king must have it delivered daily. Tauriel wondered how many days, months, years of food had been brought while she slept. She wondered why it mattered.  
  
On the other side of the room was her bow. No, not her bow, it had been lost. A bow made to be her bow. It was incongruous with the room, the dress, her hair loose from any braiding, her bare feet. The king must have had it brought, too. Another kind of nourishment.  
  
"Tauriel."  
  
She started at the sound. He was standing in the doorway. Quiet, commanding, but waiting.  
  
"You're having me watched," she accused. He nodded almost imperceptibly, eyes unreadable. "Am I a prisoner?"  
  
Thranduil smiled. She was the Tauriel he remembered. "You are my child."  
  
Tauriel blinked. She'd been prepared to argue for her freedom, to be called a guest, even to mount an escape if he'd lost his mind and imagined her to be a replacement wife. She was unprepared for this answer. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You may come and go as you like," he answered, directly and indirectly at once. "This is your room. You may decide how to furnish it or you may choose another." He paused to meet her eyes. "Your former chambers are occupied by your successor in the guard." Thranduil felt the whole wing was inappropriate for her now but he was not certain she would agree and did not want to cause her to argue. Or flee. "What you have need of, but ask."  
  
"I need _answers_." He was pleased to note she still spoke with passion.  
  
"Ask," he repeated.  
  
She was flustered, unprepared for that answer as well. "Where is your son?" She spoke tentatively and avoided his name. She remembered Legolas in the battle, but nothing after, and steeled herself to learn she'd lost even more than she knew. To learn she'd lost everything.  
  
"He serves the king of Gondor." Another answer she was not prepared for. Could not be prepared for. There was no king in Gondor, only stewards, and Thranduil was known to choose his words with utmost delicacy. He would not say king if it was not true.  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"Much is happening in the world of men."  
  
Tauriel caught her breath and felt her chest contract. The grief, the passion, the anger, the hopelessness she was not supposed to feel -- not supposed to be able to feel -- was returning and threatened to overwhelm. To drop her into the starlit dreamless state again. She shook her head, _no_ , she had slept too long already. Thranduil's eyes tightened, too small a movement for Tauriel to notice in her state, but deafening in its way.  
  
"May I enter?"  
  
Tauriel stared. She'd never known the king to ask permission. The confusion calmed her heart but her voice remained caught and she nodded, once. He swept in, commanding and quiet as ever, stopped in front of her, just far enough to be polite. "Sit," he commanded. "Rest."  
  
Tauriel frowned, at the tone or the request she wasn't certain, but obeyed, dropping onto the cushion seat because she did not want to return to bed. Thranduil laid his head to the side at her choice, a smile in his eyes if not on his lips. He swept away, to the table, and poured a glass of wine. Returning to the girl he held the goblet out to her with a third command to, "Drink." Tauriel took the glass from his hand and lifted it to her lips. The wine was a deep red, warm and sweet, and smelled of wood. Of home. She drank deeply. Thranduil nodded and took a seat on the bed.  
  
They sat in silence a moment, Tauriel was not certain how long. The king seemed to be waiting for something. A question, perhaps. "I was banished," she said, lowering the wineglass. There was no inflection to the statement but it was a question nonetheless.  
  
Thranduil inclined his chin toward her. A royal nod. "You left without permission on an unauthorized mission. You placed your personal feelings and beliefs ahead of the safety of the realm. You put my son in danger. You were banished."  
  
As he spoke Tauriel's knuckles grew white around the goblet in her hands. "Is this not Mirkwood?" she demanded in anger when he stopped. Quietly Thranduil placed his hands over hers and pulled the glass from them. He stood, stepped to the table and replaced the cup, and returned to his seat. Tauriel had not moved and he put his hands over hers again.  
  
"It is," he answered. She stared at his hands around hers another long moment. She understood his pride would not allow him to say he'd changed his mind. Or maybe it was not pride. Maybe his mind was not changed but different simply because it was a different moment. It was the way of things. For an elf.  
  
Tauriel raised her eyes to meet the king's and found a father's there instead. She felt everything rushing again and again his eyes tightened, and this time his hands as well. "Tauriel," he said, in that same tone of command. But she did not know how to obey it. "Tauriel," he said, again, and it echoed in her mind, _Tauriel_. She closed her eyes.  
  
 _Tauriel_  
  
Daughter of the forest. Warrior of the realm. Lover of the stars.  
  
 _Tauriel_  
  
She felt the light pouring in from the window that was the ceiling. He was right. It helped.  
  
 _Tauriel_  
  
She heard more voices. Voices she barely remembered. Voices she barely knew. Voices she knew better than her own.  
  
 _Tauriel. No, you cannot be her. She walks in starlight. Tauriel! Tauriel. If this is love, I don't want it. Tauriel! Tauriel. Amrâlimê. I think you do. Tauriel! Tauriel. Take it from me. Please._  
  
She would push the memories aside but his hands would not let her. She felt everything rushing... crashing.... but his hands... crushing. Holding her steady. Not taking. Giving.  
  
 _Tauriel_  
  
Her eyes flew open.  
  
He released her hands.  
  
She looked up, to the light. And smiled.  
  
"There is a king in Gondor." There was no inflection to the statement but it was a question nonetheless.  
  
Thranduil stood as he answered. "He is found, but uncrowned. The world is at war."  Tauriel's smile faltered, but he picked up her bow and turned to present it with a flourish. She read everything in his eyes. It hurt. Because it was real.  
  
She accepted the bow.  



End file.
